A traffic storm is a flurry or burst of message traffic in a network, which may overwhelm network resources and/or cause the network to fail. One example of a traffic storm is when a large number of internet protocol (IP) phones attempt to simultaneously register with the network after a power outage. Another example of a traffic storm is when a software bug at a network registrar results in deregistration and simultaneous re-registration of mobile devices.
One strategy for mitigating the effects of a traffic storm is to statically provision firewalls to limit or throttle access to the overwhelmed and/or protected network resource. Another strategy is to statically provision or throttle traffic to the overwhelmed network resource. Using statically provisioned resources to handle traffic storms is undesirable because the protection devices themselves may be overwhelmed or inadequate to handle the traffic storm.
Accordingly, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer readable media for dynamically mitigating traffic storms, using, for example, using software defined networks (SDNs) to provide flexible, scalable alternate resources when traffic storms are detected.